The Year's Most Controversial Magazine Covers

Another year is drawing to a close, which means it’s time to make 2010’s roundup of the year’s most controversial magazine covers an annual thing. As usual, 2011 brought plenty of outrage over starlets showing skin, but that’s hardly the only transgression that had parents, pundits, and censors worked into a lather. Meet the grocery store chain that thinks gay families are as explicit as Penthouse, learn why it’s not cool to put Kim Kardashian on the cover of Turkish Cosmo, and take one last, long look at Michele Bachmann’s crazy eyes, after the jump.

Elton John’s adorable baby judged unsafe for “young shoppers”

No, it’s not the bizarre expression on Elton John’s face that caused Arkansas supermarket chain Harps to censor the January Us Weekly cover above. The issue apparently merited the kind of “Family Shield” you see blocking explicit porn magazines from public view because it pictured a pair of gay dads and their new baby. According to Harps president, the shield was placed after “our store manager received some complaints” and then removed after sane customers pointed out that it’s actually kind of homophobic to suggest that gay families are somehow offensive. Elton John: respectable enough for British knighthood, but too controversial for grocery stores in the South.